10 Unknown Facts about Mr. Rogers

Ladies and Gentlemen, I completely missed Ten Facts Tuesday. You would think a regularly scheduled thing with an alliterative title would be easy to remember, but no. It seems to slip my mind all the time. I always remember that it's Sunday (when the new schedule at work is posted), Monday (because I usually have to work the first day of the new schedule), Wednesday (because it's Lost Night), Thursday (because it's the day after Lost and the day before gaming), Friday (because it's Game Night), and Saturday because that's when my teacher friend can hang out. Yet, for some strange reason, I never remember that it's Tuesday, and it has more of a reason for me to remember it that Thursday. How strange.

Your Ten Facts this week are about Mr. Fred Rogers. You may remember him as the guy from your childhood who always wore a cardigan and sneakers and his neighborhood was populated by puppets. Mental Floss recently did a list of 15 facts about what made him so great. This really sparked my desire to learn more about everyone's favorite neighbor. This is what I learned.

10 Unknown Facts about Mr. Rogers

1. Mr. Rogers's friendship with a certain member of the X-Men named Storm allowed him to ensure that every day was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
2. When not producing high quality children's programing, Mr. Rogers would travel the country in his Impala killing ghosts and monsters. The show Supernatural is based on his exploits.
3. Mr. Rogers was granted special permission by Congress to establish a sovereign nation of make-believe within the borders of the United States, though convincing the Senate to allow that nation to be a monarchy took substantially more effort.
4. Mr. Rogers had a magical set of keys that could open any door, thus granting him access to all of those dangerous factories and animal cages he seemed to love to visit so often on his show.
5. Mr. Rogers could shrink down to a height of four inches, which allowed him to ride Trolley into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.
6. Mr. Rogers's encouragement to love ourselves and each other prevented a militant alien invasion. The aliens were close to Jupiter and were moving in fast when the intercepted an episode of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. They decided that war wasn't the way to go and instead returned home after redirecting an asteroid that would have killed us all years ago.
7. Mr. Rogers never had to deal with unpleasant glares on his TV, windshield or anything else thanks to his polarized corneas.
8. Mr. Rogers could communicate with his fish.
   
9. Mr. Rogers literally did not know the meaning of the word "hate," which helped him stay kind but sometimes made it difficult to explain things to him.
10. Mr. Rogers wrote a lot of songs, this is widely known. What isn't widely known is that if all of Mr. Robers's previously unreleased material were put out on CD, he would have over one hundred times more posthumous albums than 2Pac (currently five, with a possible sixth).

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood for Mr. Rogers fans. Fifteen unknown facts from Mental Floss and ten more here. That's 25 unknown facts about Mr. Rogers for you readers today! I hope you enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed growing up with him.

You have been informed.